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Friday, June 3, 2011

Summertime Book Tours

This week my life is completely different than it was last week.  It’s amazing how school free summers are often far busier than the school year, and I’m only beginning to get a taste of this as my eldest is the only one in school right now.  Summer for us this year is filled with swimming lessons, summer reading programs at the library, family obligations and community activities, and while when I was young summer seemed like a vacation, now it feels quite the opposite.  Last month, I managed to finish the first draft of Induction, the second book of the Children of Creation Series, and will begin editing later this month.
       It’s amazing for me to look back over the past year and see how much things have changed.  This time last year, I was getting the first few chapter of Convergence ready for entry into the TWCS Original Fiction contest.  The contest ended in September.  I found out shortly afterward that Convergence had won the Young Adult category and within a couple of months I had completed it, gone through the editing process, and was being published.  My journey, which had begun in June, ended with a copy of Convergence in my hand six months later.  The sense of accomplishment was astounding and I feel so blessed for it all knowing how long it can take to be published in the traditional publishing world. 
     At my second signing, a local author whose son went to school with my husband stopped by to pick up a copy and talk.  She was very excited as she was just getting ready to have a work she had been holding on to for over twenty years come out.  I was honored to hold a copy of her book in my hands just this last week.  It was a wonderful story that I enjoyed very much and felt quite humbled by how great it was.  I felt even more humbled by the blessing that working with The Writer’s Coffee Shop Publishing House has been for me, giving me a chance to make my dreams a reality without waiting half of my life to see it come to fruition. 
    Since Convergence was released, I’ve fumbled my way through the lands of promotion, which is certainly not my strongpoint.  Despite my own struggles, I have been so happy with the feedback I have received from this first story in a series of three, which has been living in my head for well over a year now.  I sincerely hope that the second book in the series lives up to the expectations of my readers, which will then set us all up for the maelstrom that will take place in the final book of the series.  When it is all said and done, I will have put poor Dani through the wringer and back again, but I hope that anyone who reads her tale enjoys the journey.  I hope to see you all soon.  I know I will be doing a signing of Convergence at the Vespasian Warner Public Library in Clinton, IL from 2-4pm on August 6th with a few other Convergence signings still in the work, and I will be back out to promote Induction beginning in early September.